Figure 5

SP-D immunoblot of rat prostate tissue. A. A representative SP-D immunoblot of infected rat prostate tissues. The first lane contains rat prostate protein homogenate (40 μg) from a sham-infected animal, the last three lanes contain protein homogenate (40 μg) from rat prostates that were infected with E. coli and harvested 24, 48 and 72 hours post-infection, respectively. Immunoreactive SP-D migrated at a molecular weight of ~40 kDa (arrow). B. Densitometric analysis of SP-D immunoblots. SP-D protein levels were significantly increased at 24 and 48 hours post-infection when compared to the levels in sham-infected controls, which were equal to one. SP-D levels from tissues obtained 72 hours post-infection were not significantly different from control levels. This experiment was repeated three times, n = 3 animals per condition. The asterisk denotes a significant difference between the experimental condition and the control, sham-infected animals, ANOVA, p < 0.05.